Wisconsin man charged in 1991 South Side killing

A Madison, Wis., man has been brought back to Illinois to face murder charges in the killing of a 16-year-old girl in her South Side apartment in 1991, officials said today.

Steven Dixon, 36, was 16 at the time of Tiffany Lindsey's death from multiple stab wounds and a severe beating. According to Chicago police officials, a no-bond warrant for Dixon's arrest was issued on Dec. 17. Dixon was an inmate at the Wisconsin State Prison system for an unrelated crime at the time that the warrant was issued and was later brought back to Chicago, where he appeared in a Cook County courtroom today.

Police interviewed Dixon in 1991 after Lindsey was found dead, but he was never arrested. The case went unsolved until Chicago police detectives matched his DNA with that found on the victim and matched DNA from Lindsey to blood found on his clothing, according to court records filed by Cook County prosecutors.

On Oct. 13, 1991, Dixon, an acquaintance of Lindsey who had stayed in her apartment at 4724½ S. Drexel Blvd. with her and her 1-year-old son the previous night, woke up at about 7 a.m., severely beat Lindsey and stabbed her 12 times in the face, head and neck with a serrated steak knife, leaving the blade of the weapon in her neck when he fled, court records allege.

Dixon then went to his home in the 8200 block of South Damen Avenue, where he told his mother and sister that he woke up to someone "stabbing at him," court records state. He told the two women he jumped up, put on his clothes and ran from the apartment.

Dixon's sister called a friend, who went to check on Lindsey and found her dead, the body partially covered with a blanket. There was a screwdriver found near one hand, and two broken knife handles and a broken knife blade were found near the victim's head. Lindsey's 1-year-old son was found crawling on her body, court records state.

That day Dixon went to Mercy Hospital for treatment of a small puncture wound to his right hand and three shallow slashes on his abdomen. Detectives interviewed him there and collected his blood-stained clothes and took photos of his injuries. Dixon told them he woke to the sound of a woman screaming and then saw Lindsey's body prone on the floor, prosecutors say. He put his clothes on and ran.

Asked why he didn't try to help her, Dixon told detectives he was "in shock," records said. Police did not interview him again.

In August 2009, detectives with the police cold-case unit reviewed the case file and sent blood evidence from the scene, from Lindsey's body and from Dixon's body and clothes.

Evidence from the victim's fingernails came back identified as that of a man, and when detectives searched a nationwide database for a DNA match, they found it matched Dixon's profile. They later collected evidence directly from Dixon and compared it to DNA evidence from Lindsey's apartment.

The analysis showed that DNA collected from Dixon's right hand matched Lindsey's profile; DNA from the victim's fingernails was a mixture of Dixon's and Lindsey's profiles; DNA from blood on one of the knife handles was a mix of their two profiles; DNA from the screwdriver was a match for Lindsey's profile; and DNA from blood on the Dixon's shoes and the back and front of his jeans matched that of Lindsey.

Further forensic analysis by the Illinois State Police strongly suggested that Dixon's original narrative of the morning of the killing was inconsistent with the evidence, prosecutors say.